Chicken or Broiler, Cow or Steer, Owner or Guardian? - Liberating the Language of Animal Abuse An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

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Each time we speak or write as animal advocates in the public sphere, we
must choose our words carefully in our effort to get people to care about
and want to help the animals whose guardians we are, not only at the level
of physical reality but in the realm of rhetoric – the art of persuasive
discourse. As Minny cries out to her rescuer in Minny’s Dream, being locked
in a battery cage does NOT make her a “battery hen.” She is Minny...

Illustration from Nature’s Chicken by Nigel Burroughs courtesy of United
Poultry Concerns (click
to enlarge)

Cattle, sheep, swine, asses, mules, and goats, along with chickens,
geese, and turkeys all agreed enthusiastically to give their names back to
the people to whom – as they put it – they belonged. – Ursula Le Guin, “She
Unnames Them,” The New Yorker

A problem for animal advocates is the terminology of animal usage.
Speaking for animals involves negotiating a terrain of verbal conventions
that devalue animals, starting with separating “animals” from “humans.”

Farmed animal advocates, especially, are beset by the language of
agribusiness. Animals are depersonalized, even de-animalized, in farm-speak
as “broilers,” “layers,” “livestock,” “cattle,” “steers,” “veal,” “swine,”
“poultry,” “meat birds,” and the like. Putting these terms in quotation
marks is one way of signaling that this particular cow, for example, is more
than just a “dairy” cow. At the same time, too many quotation marks add
verbal clutter, so this problem, too, has to be solved.

Recently an animal advocate challenged another advocate for using the
word cow for an animal who was probably a steer – a castrated bull in a
feedlot.

The issue was that “cow” normally denotes a female animal whereas bull or
steer designates a male – one who is either sexually intact or sexually
altered. In my view, the word steer, though technically correct for a
castrated bull, discourages empathy in people who are already emotionally
detached from “cattle” – another term that is drained of subjectivity and
feeling.

We ended up agreeing that “cow,” being a kinder, warmer, more caring and
relatable word than “steer,” is therefore appropriate for both genders –
even farmers sometimes use it that way. Regardless, the fact is that most
people will never relate to an animal called a “steer.”

If in certain circumstances we feel compelled to use the term “broiler”
to distinguish chickens bred for meat, this term should never be used as a
noun but only as an adjective: Do not say “broilers.” Say broiler chickens.
Don’t call hens used for egg-production “layers” or “egg-layers” but rather
laying hens. Don’t talk about raising “veal” or refer to a veal calf’s
prison as a “veal crate.” Instead say veal calves and veal calf crates. Make
the animals visible.

As much as possible, simply say chickens, hens, cows, calves and pigs,
and always avoid terms like “grass-fed beef,” “pasture-raised eggs” and
“pasture-raised chicken.” Only a live animal can be raised, not body parts
and corpses. There’s a big difference between “pasture-raised chicken”
versus “pasture-raised chickens.” Likewise, a “chicken leg” is one thing, a
“chicken’s leg” is another.

Agribusiness: Owners or Guardians?

Responding to a United Poultry Concerns campaign alert urging the
National Fire Protection Association to require the owners of farmed animals
to install smoke control systems in animal housing facilities, a reader sent
me a “friendly reminder” that saying “owners of these animals” reaffirms the
animals’ status as property, not individuals with rights. Isn’t guardian the
right word to use? I would say Yes in most cases, but not in this one.

Given that victimization and violence are the essence of the relationship
between agribusiness corporations and the animals they own, calling them
“guardians” would be a mockery of the animals and a mockery of the word
guardian in the sense of responsible caregiver for a dependent fellow
creature or companion.

Each time we speak or write as animal advocates in the public sphere, we
must choose our words carefully in our effort to get people to care about
and want to help the animals whose guardians we are, not only at the level
of physical reality but in the realm of rhetoric – the art of persuasive
discourse. As Minny cries out to her rescuer in Minny’s Dream, being locked
in a battery cage does NOT make her a “battery hen.” She is Minny . . .

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